UPDATE: The Epic Weekend

I will have words to go with this soon......and more pictures.  Bad pictures, but pictures.  Photographer needed.  Faint of heart need not apply.

UPDATE:  Last weekend my bonus daughter came with my two pretend grand babies.  It was so nice having them!  One of the things that meant to most to me was when she asked the boys about their homework.  Then she made them drag it out, asked for their notes, and fired up her laptop to try to figure out how in the world they were supposed to get the answers for Algebra.  She's going to be a teacher and you should have seen her in teacher mode.  Her cute little outfit with a pretty scarf around her neck, her 7 month old nestled beside her, teenage boys surrounding her as she takes supervision.  The teenage boys who have watched her grow as a mother and no longer tell her that they don't have to mind her, because she is not their mother.  One of them tried that once and she came right back at them, telling them that she was A mother and they better get ready right then because THEIR mother had told her to pick them up. It's so rewarding to see kids become adults in all the phases.  And funny! 

It did my heart good, and as everyone was occupied,  Abigail and I went to feed some  horses at a friend's house.  We fed the horses and then Abigail started skipping along, following a cat. This led us clear around the pond with frequent heart stopping moments (for us older girls) as  the cat, followed closely by Abigail darted into timber on one side or to the edge of the pond on the other. 

This friend happened to be the one that had a boy within 4 months of The Rock Star and a girl six weeks before I had The Beautiful Redhead, so we are old partners in child rearing and supervision.  Even split custody, come to think of it.  Her children were the sweet things that ate the cold spaghetti on my birthday that year I was in such a horrible mood.

So you will forgive us if we were surprised at how one small 4 year old and a cat could exhaust us by the time we were only half way round the pond!

It's one of the mysteries our lives.

Abigail skipped and hopped and started to climb trees that had thorns all over them.  We meandered.  I had forgotten how nice it is to meander around, with no real plan and no time frame.  But before long we were meandering and she started darting around.  Much faster.  We had to pick up the pace substantially and it reminded me of an old Mills Brothers song, The Jones Boy.  I know it's a song about being in love, but it has just the right pace to illustrate our journey, which was turning into a rather longer one that we had bargained for.  She tried to climb through the fence because she wanted to go see the troll that my friend told her lived in the "tunnel" under the highway that was within sight from the pond bank.

That's when we decided to distract her by letting her throw stuff in the pond.  She started with grasses, worked her way up to sticks and had to be stopped when she started in on logs.  We stopped her mainly because we didn't want to have to jump in the pond.  We knew we could save her if she went in, it wasn't that. It was just that it was cold and we didn't want to have to deal with the dirty clothes, or any screaming that might be involved.  Small children can scream in an octave that paralyses me and I believe could break glass.  I noticed that little Rosie already has a delighted, very high octave sound that almost brings me to my knees.  As I get older I cannot hear my brakes squeal, apparently, but this sound comes through loud and clear.  God, could I trade this?  I would much rather be able to hear my brakes squeal and not hear this sound. Please?  I'm willing to give up something, it's an even trade, isn't it?

Anyway.....

At this point we were marveling aloud at how this could stress us out so bad.

We decided it was because she wasn't ours.

It seems like more responsibility, somehow, crazy as that sounds when I say it out loud!  Back when the kids were our own we would have just figured on the dirty laundry, and them learning on their own to stay away from the edge of the pond.  It was just a part of our lives, then.  

We decided being older had it's advantages.

Once she saw some fish, we decided we should catch one.

This was looking good to us, also, I admit, since it would mean that we could corral her on the dock, not to mention rest for awhile.

Abigail is just at the age where every time she says something she acts it out.  Her eyes sparkle and she gets very animated and she puts her little (getting knuckles instead of dimples, no) hands up and uses them to enhance her story.  She has special effects!  If it's a happy story she ends it frequently by throwing her hands up, jumping, and twirling around. She also dances all the time now.  It's a combination of ballet and interpretive dance, it looks like.

 She was fascinated by the worms, leery of the hook, and just as impatient as her Mimi when it came time to wait for the fish to bite.  This is all part of my ongoing "nurture vs. nature" observation, ahem.

I want to take this moment to publicly claim the right, for both of us old gals, of Abigail's first fish.  It seemed to be, and I forgot to ask her mom later,  but we got pictures and I am claiming it.  We worked hard for this and we are good!  We didn't even let the line out, just dangled it far enough into the water so that we could see the fish bite.

It took us several tries and even more worms, at that, but Abigail was going to catch a fish if I had to hook it under the belly.  It was her destiny, with a little help from her Mimi.

One eventually bit enough for us to catch it the right way and I would give ANYTHING if we had pictures of  not just her face, but us old gals, too, because we were all SO HAPPY!  Abigail was laughing hysterically with her little fists right up by her face.  She could hardly contain herself.  Same went for us!

We showed her the fish.  It was a perch.  We showed her how to hold it, how it could hurt her, and even how it would flop around if you dropped it.  We didn't do that on purpose, it just happened and we made it part of the lesson.  We are good at that. ;)

She wanted to keep it and eat it for breakfast!  Well, it was just a baby, and we shouldn't have kept it at all, but the fish was put in a baggie so Abigail could show it off.

Our adventure was ended, but our memories were made.  Even somewhat documented!

Next morning it took me 3 tries before I remembered everything when I was packing them up to take them back to their mom.

I thought I was ready and Abigail said "Where's my fish?  Is it up there?"

I sighed, asked forgiveness in advance from her sweet mother, and went back for the fish.

Her mother was dismayed to see that we had remembered it, but took it like a champ.

The next day I got a text from her:  "Btw we left that fish in the car by accident and it stunk bad when we realized what the horrible smell was!! Lmao"

What a woman. She already has learned that some of the best memories are the ones that smell the worst!

I will do a part 2 for this about Rosie and  our time when we had to get up and go home and Abigail said her legs hurt, refused to get up, and said she needed to stay here for a long time until she was better.

I so love that child.  Can you tell? 

And the baby?  The one we named Adriana and call Rosie Posie?  We got some time alone too!  It was delicious!